Referring now to FIGS. 1, 2, and 3, current systems and methods for displaying information, such as pricing, consist of using a paper label 12 on a pricing display 10 at the retail store shelf edge. Advancement in systems and methods of displaying information, which consists of pricing details, consist of using electronic displays 20. Electronic displays can display item pricing and other information related to the product or item. The displays 20 can be updated via-Radio Frequency (RF) or Infra Red (IR) signals from a transmitter/receiver device 22.
Information can be downloaded to the devices 22 from the store's central computer/server unit 24 that can be coupled via a Wide Area Network (referred to heretofore as the “internet”) to a central server 26. Accordingly, updates to the information can be delivered to the unit 24 via the internet and then to the displays 20 through the device 22.
In order for the correct product specific pricing and other product information to be downloaded to each of the displays 20 that are intended to label each of the specific products, each of the displays 20 must initially be associated with the product and that corresponding correlation is stored in the unit 24. Each display 20 is sent out from the factory with a unique identification. This identification is stored in an internal memory of the display 20.
Current methods of association consist of associating the displays 20 with a product's Store Keeping Unit (SKU). This association is created manually by associating a UPC code number denoting a display's 20 intrinsic ID with a product SKU by manually keying in the information pair into a database. Once each of the SKU numbers have been associated with a display's 20 unique ID denoted by a UPC code, an application program residing at the unit 24 prints out decals to be affixed to each of the displays 20. These decals have human readable information printed on them, such as the product name and the barcode or the UPC code ID of each display 20. Each decal is then matched to the corresponding display 20 and affixed to the face of the display 20.
Store personnel identify, through visual inspection, the proper display selected from the numerous displays that corresponds to the proper product on the shelf. Additionally, the store personnel must identify which unit belongs to which aisle, which shelf edge and which product and install each one of them next to the appropriate product that is located on the shelf. Each display 20 is then manually mounted near the product it is supposed to represent via a process of manually matching the product name on the display's 20 decal with that of the product on the shelf.
Current methods and systems for initialization of the display 20 and the related process, as described, is a multi-step, labor intensive process and prone to human error at every step. For example, manually matching a pre-initialized unit 20 to the proper decal and the proper assigned shelf space is highly error prone.
Consequently, what is needed is a system and method for matching numerous electronic displays to the proper shelf space while significantly reducing or even eliminating the possibility of human introduced error.